pharmaceuticals


poorly developed transport networks, where even a slight disruption of the cold chain may have dire consequences. The highly-regulated pharmaceutical, life sciences and


healthcare market presents the supply chain industry with unique challenges. But with the technology at their disposal, the supply chain experts are capable of meeting the sector’s demands. Cold chains need to be evaluated and controlled, points out the US- based PDA (Parenteral Drug Association), and each step of the custody chain needs to follow established protocols where accurate documentation is critical. Another carrier that takes transportation of pharmaceuticals


Cold chain warehousing also requires employees to be protected against temperature fluctuations


pharmaceutical products should be suitable for the task and appropriately protective of the products in transit to prevent exposure to conditions that could affect their stability and packaging integrity, and should prevent contamination of any kind. Producers, distribution centres, resellers, transport companies,


forwarders, airline and sea freight companies, truckers and other service providers need to take precautions to respect the required temperatures and ensure that measurements are recorded. This is not easy, especially when many different temperature variations can be spread throughout the same cold chain. The challenge is even greater


when air and sea freight transportation is utilised on a global scale, as not only do external temperature variations


Lemaire is aware of “the quality that our customers expect from us”


increase significantly but so do the number of multimodal participants within the cold chain – and the more participants there are in the chain, the greater the possibility of temperature fluctuations.


An unbroken cold chain is a blend of commercial practice,


documentary and electronic message handling and risk management, providing an uninterrupted chain of storage and distribution movements while maintaining a given temperature constant or temperature range for the product. The cold chain helps to extend and ensure the shelf life of numerous products such as fresh and frozen food, photographic film, chemicals and – increasingly –drugs, vaccines and medicines. Whether pharmaceutical products are moving on long-haul or


short-haul flights, or a shipment needs to be trucked across the US, Europe or through the temperature and infrastructure extremes of Africa, Asia or Latin America to meet its delivery criteria, there needs to be a full 24-hour quality system in place to meet the ever- changing demands of the industry. This is vitally important in the supply of vaccines to distant clinics in hot climates served by


28 AIR LOGISTICS CHINA


very seriously is Air France Cargo-KLM Cargo, which is said to use the largest number of Envirotainer containers on a monthly basis. It has been accredited as a Qualified Envirotainer Provider (QEP), supporting the joint carrier’s closed cool chain solution for pharma products. “The accreditation is a clear recognition of the serious work achieved by the Air France-KLM Cargo team to put the requirements of our pharma customers in the centre of our process in order to achieve the quality that our customers expect from us,” remarked Stéphane Lemaire, who until recently was director of the Air France Cargo-KLM Cargo Pharmaceutical Industry segment.


NICHE MARKETS For some niche market pharmaceutical and biotech products, temperature-controlled containers are not the only solution. More companies are providing their own packaging solutions, such as thermo blankets, foam-filled boxes or polyurethane containers, according to product needs. Airport-to-airport transportation is just one sector of the cold


chain that needs to be rigorously maintained, but the whole process is invalidated if temperature control during surface transportation is not maintained, points out global forwarder Kuehne + Nagel (K+N). “Our modern temperature-controlled transportation fleet plays


a key role in the secure transportation of pharmaceutical and healthcare products,” a K+N spokesman informed. “The fleet is equipped with enhanced GPS allowing continuous temperature monitoring of products and constant location status. We monitor every movement of our customers’ cargo to keep control from pick-up to delivery.”


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